Optical telescopes are utilized for a wide variety of purposes. For example, optical telescopes may be utilized for laser surveying or laser communications. With respect to laser surveying, an optical telescope may support light detection and ranging (LiDAR) in which a distance measurement is obtained by illuminating a target with a laser and subsequently analyzing the reflected light. As such, optical telescopes may support topographic surveying. In addition, optical telescopes may support laser communications including air-to-ground communications, ground-to-ground communications, surface-to-ground communications, surface-to-surface communications, and/or air-to-surface communications. As used herein, “surface” may refer not only to ground, but to other types of surfaces, such as the surface of bodies of water.
In some applications, the size and weight that may be allocated for an optical telescope is limited, thereby also constraining the optical telescopes that may be utilized in such applications. Further, some applications may require a relatively large aperture and field of regard which may, in turn, limit the optical telescopes that may effectively service such applications due to constraints upon the aperture and field of regard imposed by some optical telescopes. In this context, the field of regard is the area covered by a detector when pointing to all mechanically possible positions. Further, some optical telescopes may include a number of refractive optical elements which may, in turn, limit or prevent the integration of multi-spectral sensing and lasers which may be desirable in some applications.